Where does repertoire collide?

Jerne's 1955 The natural-selection theory of antibody formation proposed that the body already carries a large diversity of antibodies before any foreign molecule arrives, and that an invader simply selects and multiplies the matching ones; that pre-existing diversity is what immunologists now call the repertoire. Jerne's 1971 The somatic generation of immune recognition made the word standard, using it for the full set of antigen receptors an individual can display on its antibodies and lymphocytes. Here the referent is a population of molecules and cells inside one organism, counted by how many distinct receptor shapes it holds. It has nothing to do with a speaker's range of language varieties, a culture's stock of habits, or a firm's set of competitive moves.[1][2]

Unit

One distinct antigen-receptor specificity within an individual's antibody and lymphocyte population

Recovery means

The repertoire is regenerated continually as the bone marrow and thymus produce new lymphocytes

Measured by

Quantified by repertoire sequencing (RepSeq): high-throughput reading of the receptor genes across many cells

Gumperz's 1964 Linguistic and Social Interaction in Two Communities, published in American Anthropologist, introduced the verbal repertoire: the whole set of language varieties, dialects, registers, and styles that a speaker or a speech community can draw on and switch between. The choice among them carries social meaning, signaling setting, relationship, and identity. Here the referent is a person's or a group's linguistic resources, catalogued as the varieties they command. It is not a store of antibodies, a set of cultural habits, or a company's menu of business actions.[3]

Unit

One language variety, dialect, register, or style available to a speaker or community

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Documented by recording who uses which varieties in which settings, and by mapping code-switching

Swidler's 1986 Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies, in American Sociological Review, recast culture not as a set of values that drive behavior but as a toolkit or repertoire of habits, skills, and styles from which people assemble their lines of action. On this view a person draws selectively from the repertoire to build strategies for living, rather than being pushed by a single overriding value. Here the referent is the shared, learned stock of ways of acting that a group carries. It differs from a biological store of receptors, a speaker's range of language varieties, and a firm's set of market moves.[4]

Unit

One habit, skill, or style within a group's shared cultural stock

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Studied through interviews and ethnography that catalogue the strategies of action people actually use

Miller and Chen's 1994 Sources and Consequences of Competitive Inertia, a study of US airlines in Administrative Science Quarterly, defined a firm's competitive repertoire as the total set and variety of competitive actions it undertakes, such as price changes, new services, and market entries. A narrow, unchanging repertoire is competitive inertia, which they linked to weaker performance. Here the referent is the range of moves a single company deploys against its rivals over time, counted as distinct actions. It is unrelated to a body's antibodies, a speaker's language varieties, or a culture's stock of habits.[5]

Unit

One distinct competitive action (a price move, product change, or market entry) within a firm's action set

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Counted from structured records of a firm's announced competitive actions over a period, often via press coverage

In performance studies, repertoire refers to embodied practices such as dance, ritual and speech that transmit memory, as distinct from the written archive. This meaning comes from Taylor (2003) in The archive and the repertoire.[6]

Unit

Recovery means

Measured by